Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Sorry this post is a day late. My neighbour
sprayed termite spray all around their house and I am highly allergic. The past
four days have been… fun. And by fun, I mean an insane, waking nightmare of
hives, burning mouth and throat, migraines and vomiting. Good times!

They're outside smoking as I type this, which
I am also allergic to. At what point does this cross over from annoyance to
attempted murder? Anyway, on with the post.

The Importance
Of Sleep

Quality sleep is important to good mental and
physical health, and weight loss. Poor sleepers have a higher risk of heart
disease and stroke, they eat more calories, they have reduced insulin sensitivity,
putting you at higher risk for type 2 diabetes, they have poor concentration and
lower performance, are more likely to suffer depression, have weaker immune
systems, suffer increased inflammation and lowers your ability to empathise. Which
is terrible news if you are an insomniac like me.

However, reading that list, it becomes very
clear why it is VITAL we do everything in our power to get eight hours of
quality sleep every single night.

There are several ways to do this and talking
to your doctor about prescription and over the counter sleeping aids might be
one of them. You should also try and exercise in the morning, get 15 minutes of
sun a day, avoid caffeine up to six hours before you plan to go to bed and
avoid screens of all kinds for at least an hour before bed.

Make sure you go to bed as pain free as
possible, wear comfortable clothes and keep the room at a comfortable
temperature.

Mattress Quality

Quality beds are very expensive. I know. However,
when calculating the price, remember you will be spending a third of your life
using it, and a good quality mattress should last ten years. So always divide
the cost by ten, to see how much you are paying a year for high quality sleep.
Its probably not as much as you think, when you consider how important sleep
really is.

It might be a good idea to start a mattress
saving fund and put aside your tax refund, along with a set amount each week.
If you've just brought a new mattress, and a good mattress is $10, 000. You
need to save $1000 a year for the next ten years so you are ready to buy the
next one. $1000 a year is only $83.50 a month and if you put it in a high
interest savings account, you'll come out with a little more at the end.

Another tip is to wait for big sales at mattress
stores and buy then. You can get as much as 50% off at End of Financial Year Sales.
If you keep your receipt, or scan it, as they tend to fade, and show that when
you try and sell your mattress, you might even be able to get $1000 back. Which
can go into your new mattress fund.

Pillows,
Sheets and Hygiene

You (hopefully) spend 8 hours out of every 24
in your bed, on your pillow and sheets. During those eight hours you drool,
sweat, cough, fart, shed dead skin cells and wipe snot and eye-goo on
everything.

When you think about that, suddenly changing
your sheets and pillow case every day feels like a good idea. However, that's
not always practical. You SHOULD, however, change your sheets and pillowcase
every week.

Did you know, within 12 months, the average volume
of a pillow becomes 1/3 dead skin cells? Yep. So, make sure you get a new
pillow every 12 months too. Or every six months, if you are prone to sinus
infections or lung problems.

Also, remember if you are sick with anything contagious,
your bed has become a hotzone. When you recover, everything has to go in the wash,
or you could just keep reinfecting yourself.

Sometimes we, as chronically ill people,
refrain from using these tools because we feel we aren't sick enough to deserve
them. This is crazy talk. There is no need to 'qualify' for an aid. They are designed
to make life easier, so if they make your life easier, you are qualified for
one.

Sometimes, people will tell us we aren't
qualified. These people are assholes and you don't owe them anything. Practise
the words: "I have difficulty with X. This aid makes X a bit easier for
me."

Anyone who doesn't apologise and gives you a
hard time after that is not deserving of your time, energy or love. Ignore them
and move on with your life—hopefully with a bunch of new aids that make things
easier for you.

Lifestyle
Aids Exercise

This is an exercise to help you determine if
you have the best lifestyle aids on offer, if you need more, and what those aids
should be.

First, I want you to write a list of all the
things you struggle with in day to day life. It helps to think about every room
in your house and look at your day planner, in order to ferret out any difficult
things you take for granted.

Some examples might be:

- Toileting

- Showering

- Cooking

- Driving

- Getting out of bed

- Shopping

- Walking the dog

- Typing

- Watching TV

- Reading

- Doing Taxes

Etc

When you have a long, comprehensive list of
things that are challenging, it is time to subhead them with why. EG:

- Toileting

-
Getting up and down

-
Constipation

- Showering

-
Getting fatigued

-
Slipping

Reading

-
Trouble focusing/blurry vision

Watching TV

-
Can't hear well

When you have a comprehensive idea of what
difficulties you are having with each activity, it is time to start looking for
solutions. And I promise there are a lot more solutions out there than you
think! If you have a problem, someone has solved it. Most of those really silly
seeming ideas on infomercials are designed for disabled people. For example,
those egg crackers? Designed for people with one arm. No spill bowls? Designed
for people with tremors. And so on.

If you have trouble getting up and down from
the toilet, it is worth installing a handrail. If you are having issues with
constipation, it may be that a Squatty Potty will solve all your problems. If
you get fatigued in the shower, often a plastic chair will help. If you slip
over in the bath or shower, simply invest in a cheap anti slip mat. I stopped
reading for years until I got a kindle and realised I could make the text as
big as I needed. And most digital TVs these days had subtitle options that can
be turned on and off with your remote. You may already have the aids you need
and not know it!

Asking in groups (facebook groups are plentiful
and accessible) for people with similar conditions to you can expose you to a
whole wealth of products you didn't previously know about. There are even fonts
that make it easier for dyslexic people to read.

When you have at least one solution to all
your problems, list them in priority. You might have to list them in order of
practicality while you are at it. Newer, more expensive cars have navigation
and driving options that would make life MUCH easier for me, but I simply can't
afford a new car. Let alone a new fancy car. As much as I would like one, I have
to accept I just can’t have one at this time. However, I do have a lot of aids
currently on my wish list and I put aside a little money every fortnight,
buying them when I have saved up enough.

Summary

So, there you have it. Sleep well and use
whatever tools and aids make life easier for you. These really apply if you are
chronically ill or not. If you have any really cool lifestyle aids you want to
share, link them in the comments below and they can be a resource for everyone.

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

For the next six weeks we're doing something
a little different. We're talking about chronic illness, its impacts and how
best to manage those impacts and still get shit done.

This is, however, going to be an HONEST look
at chronic illness. Be sure you are mentally equipped to handle that before
reading further.

This week, we're looking at food and fluids.

Cooking is
Hard and Sometimes Dangerous:

Cooking when you are chronically ill can be
difficult and sometimes dangerous. People with MS and nerve conditions can give
themselves horrific burns without realising. Often, if I try and cook with a
migraine, I will zone out and forget the food. This usually results in ruined food,
if not an actual house fire. Another thing that happens is if my hands are
shaky, I can drop things, resulting in a house full of broken glass, or
accidentally slice myself with knives.

Just preparing a meal when chronically ill
can result in serious harm or injury—even if you're only reheating something.

This is a pain in the ass, because we all
have to eat and if we can't feed ourselves, someone else has to do it for us.
Which is humiliating. However, if you are in this situation, rest assured, you
are not alone. And you shouldn't be humiliated when you are otherwise being
forced to choose between going hungry or your house burning down.

Hello, Allergies
and Intolerances!

Many people with chronic illness also end up
with food intolerances or allergies. This is because chronic illness usually
involves inflammation somewhere. And inflammation somewhere triggers inflammation
in other places, like, say, your gut. If a doctor hasn't told you this before,
feel free to burn down the whole clinic—may as well rebuild that trash fire
from the ground up.

So not only is cooking more difficult for
chronically ill people, but we are also often limited by the types of food we
can eat. Many chronic illnesses also directly contribute to eating problems,
because many chronic illnesses have a gut component. Or else our medication
might cause gut problems.

Thing is, it can be hard to find foods that
don't make us shit like a confetti cannon. Or just never shit again without
weapons grade laxatives.

And if you do find foods that don't turn your
bathroom into a horror movie, they might be difficult, or even impossible for you
to prepare regularly. And don't even get me started on eating out with friends.

Everyone has
different, sometimes illogical, food issues:

You know that friend you have who is
convinced if you just tried THEIR diet, you would be as healthy as them? Set
that person on fire. Get new friends. And if you have been that friend, set yourself
on fire and stop doing that shit.

Veganism works great for you? Fantastic. I
have low iron, can't eat any legumes or many iron rich foods, can't have iron supplements
without throwing up, and they can't get a line on me to do infusions because I
have shitty veins. I have to eat red meat twice a day. TWICE A DAY. And I ain't
that morally phased by cannibalism either, so hit me up with your bullshit advice
again, I dare you.

However, if you're vegan and you come to my
house, you can bet your ass I am going to have an awesome vegan meal waiting
for you. Because it works for you, and I am happy for you.

If you're frustrated, because you can eat one
brand of cheese and not another almost identical brand, its probably not in
your head. Just eat the cheese you can eat and stop worrying about looking like
a liar. Its your fucking health and anyone who thinks you're making it up for
attention just doesn't realise how fucking frustrating it is. Or humiliating.
Or time consuming. Or they just haven't had to share a bathroom with you.

Food Is
Medicine:

Why am I telling you all this stuff you
already know? Mostly so you know, I know how hard it is. Because I am about to
get mean again.

Despite the difficulties, you must think of
food as medication. You must take it as seriously as a prescription. Which
means you must stop eating foods that aren't good for you, just because they
make you feel good at the time. That's like taking recreational drugs instead
of your meds.

Trust me, I KNOW what it feels like to wake
up and know the only good thing that is going to happen to you that day is a
packet of Tim Tams. I know what its like when you've woken up and you're going
to be in pain for sixteen hours, get nothing done, then go to sleep to prepare
for the next sixteen hours of pain. I know how horrific it is, when that bar of
chocolate is the only part of the day that isn't going to suck.

However, if you want to get to days where you
can do things, where the entire day doesn't suck, where the best part of the
day ISN'T shitty food, then you have to give up eating the shitty food. Food is
an abusive partner. You can't be in a great relationship without leaving the bad
one.

We all have different intolerances, but, and
this is a big but, WE ALL HAVE THE SAME NUTRITINAL NEEDS. I mean, not exactly,
but we all need protein, we all need vitamins, we all need fibre, we all need
calcium and salt, etc. Just because its HARD for you to eat something, doesn't
mean you don't need it. And, if you want to admit it or not, the lack of it in
your diet is probably contributing to you feeling like shit. So, if you find a
way to get on top of it, you will feel less shit.

This is going to mean educating yourself on
what the human body needs. Please choose to learn from sources that aren't
f-ing stupid. Peer reviewed sources that aren't being paid by the food industry,
please. I recommend the CSIRO (and their meal/diet books). If that all sounds
like too much, find a good dietician instead.

You Are
Mostly Fluid:

When I was sixteen, a girl the same age as
me, who went to a neighbouring high school, died of dehydration. Or, more specifically,
she died of kidney failure which was caused by dehydration. She was not sick,
or camping, or isolated in any way. Actually, she just spent a hot weekend partying
and drank a lot of alcohol and no water or soda.

When I lived up the top end (Far North Queensland),
the older generations, particularly the drovers and people who walked outdoors,
lived by a golden rule: 'Don't sleep until you've peed.'

If you couldn't pee before getting into bed,
you had to keep drinking until you could. Why? Stops you dying of dehydration
or suffering organ damage. Because when you are dehydrated, your body holds on
to fluid, recycling it over and over, making it more and more toxic. When you start
drinking, it flushes out all that toxic water as urine, rehydrating with the
new, clean water. It takes a long time for you pee to become really toxic.
Which is why you can keep drinking it to stay alive. But eventually the compounds
the pee is supposed to flush out will build up in your body and do a lot of
harm.

So, this is why we are told to drink two
litres of water a day. It rinses through our body, cleaning out bad stuff, that
is then expelled in our pee. That is the function of kidneys and urine. Water
also allows us to pass faeces. Obviously dry faeces aren't going anywhere. And
it is expelled when we breath and sweat.

Most of us don't drink water though—we drink
water with stuff in it. Soft drink, juice, coffee, milk, etc. Hopefully this isn't
news to you, but most juice has the same, if not more sugar than soft drink.
And soft drink is bad for a whole variety of reasons, not least of all because the
gas causes your stomach to stretch and a stretched stomach makes it harder to
feel full, so you over eat. I am going to talk about caffeine in another post,
but I'm not a huge fan of that either.

If possible, I am a big fan of just drinking water,
or home-made juice. Since a huge portion of your sugar intake is probably coming
from your fluids, I want you to ask yourself if you really NEED to be drinking
soda/juice/flavoured milk or if you just WANT to, because it's comforting and
you like it.

Fluids are also medicine. Don't ignore it
just because you don't have to chew it.

How to
Manage Food and Fluids:

Firstly, you need to know what you can and can't
eat. This is a pain in the ass and, to the best of my knowledge, can only
really be done with trial and error. A dietician will be able to help you with
an exclusion diet. Which is about as fun as being sent to prison for a fun, three-month
retreat.

Once you know what you can and can't eat, the
next step is making it accessible to yourself. This is when shit either falls
apart, or a new, magic time in your life begins. So, how do you make healthy,
home cooked meals accessible?

Planning. It all comes down to planning and preparation.
You need 3-4 dinner/lunches you can bulk cook and freeze, and you need at least
one breakfast you can pre-prepare, or make instantly without too much effort. A
good example for breakfast is overnight oats (google for easy recipes) or
toast.

Lunches and dinners are going to be soups, stews,
casseroles, things you can pre-prepare, leave in the freezer, and then whack
into a slow cooker, sauces, etc. Many days the only thing I can safely eat is
things that can be stuck in the oven and left there until a timer goes off. So,
home made pasties, pies and sausage rolls are great.

Plan what you are going to eat and when you
are going to eat it. Three meals a day? Five? One? Whatever works for you is
fine, just be realistic and do it with your BEST HEALTH in mind, not what is convenient.

Write a list of the ingredients you need for
a week. Buy them. Shopping online is good, I like having groceries delivered.
Now, if you have meat and fresh veg, you will have a limited time to prepare
it. Set aside a whole day, preferably with someone to help you, where you are
going to prepare all your meals for the week, then put them in the freezer/fridge.

Then, simply heat and eat.

Final Ass-kicking:

I know cooking your own healthy food is more
effort than ordering a pizza. I know its not as tasty as a pizza. I know you
want sugar and fat and cheese to make yourself feel better. But it is not
making you feel better. Its making you sicker. We both know it, its time we were
both honest about it.

This blog series is not about feeling good.
Its about doing the hard work so we can inch toward good health and actually
have lives worth living. Would you rather eat junk, accomplish nothing you
dreamed about, and die? Or would you rather suffer a little more now, so in the
future you have the chance of achieving your goals before you die? Because
we're all going to die. Its just a matter of when and what we do before then.

I know it seems super impossible and like it
won't make a difference. Maybe it won't, I'm not going to lie. Maybe you could
eat the healthiest diet in the world and still never be well enough to spend a
half day off the couch. But its better to try and fail. Because its not really
failing, its just finding another thing that doesn't work.

Maybe the first healthy diet you try will
make you sicker (I did green smoothies for months, HUGE mistake, my iron levels
bottomed out and it took me a year to recover). Maybe what you think of as
healthy is not healthy for you. Maybe you can keep tweaking and eventually you
will find something that works. Maybe it will work well enough you can get on
top of something else. And then that will allow you isolate another symptom,
and so on and so forth.

That is how I did it. I'm still sick, I'm
still a work in progress, but I'm getting there. Its taken over ten years of
effort, but I am so happy have progressed. Those ten years were going to pass
either way, and if I had done nothing I would probably be dead, or in a care
facility with a nurse changing my diaper.

My Links

About Me

Born in 1985, Talitha is a geeky Australian writer who spends an unhealthy amount of time reading and watching horror movies. She also loves fresh water shrimps and snakes, and lives in a house dominated by various tanks housing both. She advises that shrimps are the best companions for writers; as they always look like they are typing. Snakes, on the other hand, simply knock everything off your desk—including keyboards, mugs, entire computers and shrimp tanks.
Talitha’s other interests include entomology, rock climbing, reading, web design, photography and video gaming.